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lost victorian films saved
Lost film footage of the funeral of William Gladstone in 1898 and a forgotten live action adaptation of Snow White from 1910 have been saved for posterity after being found in an archive earmarked for destruction.
Dozens of films which have never been seen before or were thought lost have been found in more than 600 cans of rotting nitrate film that were due to be thrown out by their owners.
The discovery of the footage, which includes a mix of professional and amateur productions, has been hailed by cinema specialists as a significant breakthrough. As well as the Victorian-era funeral footage, many of the films provide a unique insight into social life in Britain in the early decades of the 20th century.
They include an Edwardian wedding from 1913, a society garden party from 1914 and an amateur film about the Malmesbury Festival in Wiltshire from the early 1920s. The festival film boasts "a colossal cast of locals" and includes a beauty contest.
The footage, which also includes many depictions of street life in Britain, has been unearthed by staff at the Huntley archive, which is based in Soho in central London, who have been sorting through the cans before their destruction.
The archive was started by the late John Huntley, a film enthusiast who began collecting as a child and who began his professional career working as a tea boy for the film producer, Alexander Korda.
Mr Huntley, who died in 2003 aged 82, worked for the British Film Institute prior to setting up his own private archive in the mid 1980s. The 600 cans of nitrate film had been stored in aircraft hangars in the south of England.
Nitrate film, which is no longer used because of the health risk that it poses, is very fragile and much of the original material is already damaged beyond repair. Staff are now trying to save what they can of the remainder.
James Webster, the archivist who is examining the film, said: "I did not really have any expectations of what we might find when we began looking through the material, but it never crossed my mind that there would be a film adaptation of Snow White which we had never even heard of.
''Much of the material is not labelled so we are having to work out what it might be. Obviously there are clues in the films themselves.
"The shots of the wedding in 1913 are particularly interesting. The wedding party does not look particularly well off, but the film itself has been shot on 33mm film which was very expensive at the time. We believe the couple may have been connected with a local film studio and may have borrowed the equipment."
The 1910 French film adaptation of Snow White, which is colour tinted, is every bit as lavish as the Walt Disney animated version which followed in 1937.
The film, which appears to have been called The Little Snow White, is in almost perfect condition. The seven dwarfs are played by children with makeshift beards.
Other cinematic discoveries include a British silent comedy called Why Jones Got The Sack, a cautionary tale about the merits of time-keeping which was released in 1907, and the 1933 film, The Woman Who Dared, which had been presumed to be lost.
The discovery has caused excitement among historians and archivists who believe that it could prove to be as significant as the find of the Mitchell and Kenyon film archive, which was the subject of a BBC series earlier this year.
More than 800 cans of film, spanning the period 1897 to 1913, were found during renovation work on Sagar Mitchell and James Kenyon's shop in Blackburn in 1994. The BFI restored the collection which was made available to the public in January.
The Huntley archive is unlikely to throw up as much material, not least because much of it has been damaged during storage. The range is, however, likely to be far greater. While it does include commercial films of working-class people similar to the type produced by the Blackburn pioneers, it also includes a great deal of material which focuses on middle class and aristocratic life.
The Huntley archive is likely to prove lucrative when it is made available to the public next year. Television and film companies wishing to use footage will be charged a fee of £9 a second.
Adrian Wood, the Bafta-winning archivist who has worked on programmes including ITV's acclaimed The Second World War In Colour, said that only time would tell how significant the collection was.
"It could be that this material is more significant than the Mitchell and Kenyon collection. But it needs to be studied by people with real experience of evaluating these sorts of finds.
"The BFI, for instance, has some footage of Gladstone's funeral. We need to check whether the footage uncovered by the Huntley archives is different or is of better quality."
Dozens of films which have never been seen before or were thought lost have been found in more than 600 cans of rotting nitrate film that were due to be thrown out by their owners.
The discovery of the footage, which includes a mix of professional and amateur productions, has been hailed by cinema specialists as a significant breakthrough. As well as the Victorian-era funeral footage, many of the films provide a unique insight into social life in Britain in the early decades of the 20th century.
They include an Edwardian wedding from 1913, a society garden party from 1914 and an amateur film about the Malmesbury Festival in Wiltshire from the early 1920s. The festival film boasts "a colossal cast of locals" and includes a beauty contest.
The footage, which also includes many depictions of street life in Britain, has been unearthed by staff at the Huntley archive, which is based in Soho in central London, who have been sorting through the cans before their destruction.
The archive was started by the late John Huntley, a film enthusiast who began collecting as a child and who began his professional career working as a tea boy for the film producer, Alexander Korda.
Mr Huntley, who died in 2003 aged 82, worked for the British Film Institute prior to setting up his own private archive in the mid 1980s. The 600 cans of nitrate film had been stored in aircraft hangars in the south of England.
Nitrate film, which is no longer used because of the health risk that it poses, is very fragile and much of the original material is already damaged beyond repair. Staff are now trying to save what they can of the remainder.
James Webster, the archivist who is examining the film, said: "I did not really have any expectations of what we might find when we began looking through the material, but it never crossed my mind that there would be a film adaptation of Snow White which we had never even heard of.
''Much of the material is not labelled so we are having to work out what it might be. Obviously there are clues in the films themselves.
"The shots of the wedding in 1913 are particularly interesting. The wedding party does not look particularly well off, but the film itself has been shot on 33mm film which was very expensive at the time. We believe the couple may have been connected with a local film studio and may have borrowed the equipment."
The 1910 French film adaptation of Snow White, which is colour tinted, is every bit as lavish as the Walt Disney animated version which followed in 1937.
The film, which appears to have been called The Little Snow White, is in almost perfect condition. The seven dwarfs are played by children with makeshift beards.
Other cinematic discoveries include a British silent comedy called Why Jones Got The Sack, a cautionary tale about the merits of time-keeping which was released in 1907, and the 1933 film, The Woman Who Dared, which had been presumed to be lost.
The discovery has caused excitement among historians and archivists who believe that it could prove to be as significant as the find of the Mitchell and Kenyon film archive, which was the subject of a BBC series earlier this year.
More than 800 cans of film, spanning the period 1897 to 1913, were found during renovation work on Sagar Mitchell and James Kenyon's shop in Blackburn in 1994. The BFI restored the collection which was made available to the public in January.
The Huntley archive is unlikely to throw up as much material, not least because much of it has been damaged during storage. The range is, however, likely to be far greater. While it does include commercial films of working-class people similar to the type produced by the Blackburn pioneers, it also includes a great deal of material which focuses on middle class and aristocratic life.
The Huntley archive is likely to prove lucrative when it is made available to the public next year. Television and film companies wishing to use footage will be charged a fee of £9 a second.
Adrian Wood, the Bafta-winning archivist who has worked on programmes including ITV's acclaimed The Second World War In Colour, said that only time would tell how significant the collection was.
"It could be that this material is more significant than the Mitchell and Kenyon collection. But it needs to be studied by people with real experience of evaluating these sorts of finds.
"The BFI, for instance, has some footage of Gladstone's funeral. We need to check whether the footage uncovered by the Huntley archives is different or is of better quality."